Sometimes It’s More Than Sketching

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Larry Marshall

The change of seasons, for me, means transition from street sketcher to museum sketcher. It’s a sad time, but also an exciting time. There’s so much shape variation in museum exhibitions.

Our Musee de la civilisation has a new exhibit just opened that presents Australian/New Zealand aboriginal art and as I play didjeridu and love aboriginal art, I’m quite excited about it. Most of the exhibit is paintings, rugs, and such but there are some statues and masks that I’ll be taking advantage of this winter.

I was there a few days ago, drawing a large wall-hanging mask. So were a bunch of kids on school outings. The kids were great as they’d come to see what I was doing and when I talked to them I got half a dozen more coming to see what was going on. This begat more and more kids to the point where I was mostly just talking to them about the watercolor pencils, waterbrushes, and how much fun it is to draw. Kids “get it.” They haven’t learned the feelings and emotions about art that adults somehow acquire.

Eventually they wandered away, though, and I got back to drawing. I was really enjoying the music and serenity of the room. A mother and her two young daughters (I’d guess they were 4 and 6) came by and, again, the kids were interested and, as is often the case with parents, the mother told them to leave me alone. I told her it was fine and I showed them what I was doing.

The older girl had some sort of writing/sketching book with her and started to draw with me. The younger one, of course, wanted to draw too, which sent mom scrambling for paper and pencil. She found some paper but had only a Seattle Seahawks pencil with her and it needed sharpening. I sharpened it and we chatted as I did. They were on vacation from where some of my favorite urban sketchers live – Seattle.

The kids drew a bit and I finished my sketch. The older girl came over to show me her drawing and I asked her if she wanted to use my watercolor pencils to color her drawing. Her look was priceless and I loaned her one pencil at a time. The same thing happened with the younger girl. We had a regular sketchcrawl going on.

I wish I had been smart enough to take some photos. Sadly, all I can share is the sketch I did, but it was the most insignificant thing that happened on this day.

Stillman & BIrn Beta (9×12), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black, Albrecht-Durer watercolor pencils

Reporting From Outside Quebec City Hall

Posted on October 24, 2015 by Larry Marshall

I was on the beat and walking in front of Quebec City’s City Hall when I came across this. It looked like the mayor had moved one of the offices (or lab) outside, just to the left of the main entrance to the building. There was only one administrative assistant as far as I could tell.

What is underway here is unclear. I know that Mayor Lebaume is pulling out all the stops to get an NHL hockey franchise for Quebec City. Maybe this is his latest attempt. The mainstream press have said nothing at all about this, so I hope I don’t become the next Ed Snowden for exposing these activities.

Stillman & Birn Beta (9×12), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

Return To Museum Sketching

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Larry Marshall

I wonder what my dad would think if he knew that the thing I remember most about him was him saying to me (often), “You’d forget your head if it wasn’t attached.” The sad thing is that, decades later, he’s still right.

I headed off to meet sketching buddies at the Musee de la civilisation the other day, which amounts to full acknowledgement that outdoor sketching is finished, or nearly so, for the year. It’s starting to get cold and this Arizona boy doesn’t do cold. None of us is very excited by the current expositions at the museum but there’s always something to draw, if only to provide practice and opportunity to try different techniques.

Once at the museum and I started thinking of sketching, I realized that I’d forgotten my light and my stool. Most of the rooms are so dark that without a light clipped to my sketchbook, I can’t see what I’m drawing. And, oddly when you think of it, most of the displays are low, requiring a stool to get your eyes on level with what you’re drawing.

Lucky for me, my head was attached and I used it to decide to draw something from the main entrance, where the museum seems willing to pay the electric bill and thus there is sufficient light. I thought about the stairwells, they’d be an interesting drawing challenge. I thought about the old bones of a boat that’s part of the entrance display. To do it justice, though, would require a lot of hours. I thought about drawing the ticket counter, but I’d already done that once.

Instead, I looked out the window to the courtyard associated with the museum and did this sketch. I forgot a lot that day but because of this sketch I’ll always remember to be grateful that my head is attached.

Quebec City Museum of Civilization courtyard

Stillman & Birn Beta (6×9), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

Megacerops In Ottawa

Posted on October 18, 2015 by Larry Marshall

My daughter was coming home for Canadian Thanksgiving (it’s in October) and rather than have her take a train, I wisely reasoned that it wouldn’t cost any more for me to drive to Ottawa to pick her up and bring her back to Quebec City. Yes, it would mean ten hours of driving but heck, I could spend a couple hours sketching in the nature museum (I have a membership). And yeah, maybe that is a bit crazy but I am, as Steve Martin used to say, a “wild and crazy guy” when it comes to sketching.

So, at 3:30AM I drove out of town so that I could arrive at the museum when it opened at 9AM. This insanity was rewarded with a wonderful early morning sketching session where I got to hang out with a family of Megacerops. Well, actually they were life-size models of them. They roamed Manitoba and some of the plains states, but they went extinct a while ago, maybe even before I was born. They sure were big, though, and he wouldn’t fit on my paper and I decided that this end was better than the other end.

Stillman & Birn Beta (9x12), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

Stillman & Birn Beta (9×12), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

When I finished I had to leave to meet my daughter for lunch. We had a great lunch and then continued to chat until her afternoon class. At that point I repeated my 20-minute walk back to the museum, intent on doing more sketching.

It was not to be. When I arrived I learned about something called a PA day. I don’t really know what PA means but it happens in schools. What it meant to the museum was that every young kid in the Ottawa area was at the nature museum, or so it seemed. The nature museum is designed for kids to get excited, have fun and with so many of them there the decibel level in the museum, accompanied by the frenetic movement of little bodies around the rooms suppressed any notion I had of drawing. I made the best of it by actually visiting the museum like a normal person, reading the plaques and learning a few things about the exhibits.

So, please do me a favor. Look at my Megacerops a few extra seconds; I drove ten hours to draw it (grin).

Rainy Day Sketchcrawl A Big Success

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Larry Marshall

The morning of this month’s Croquis de Quebec sketchcrawl bordered on the depressing. It was the proverbial dark and stormy night only it wasn’t night, but it was certainly stormy. I headed to our sketchcrawl in full rain gear, thinking that only Yvan and I, the organizers, would show up as people are reluctant to sketch in the rain. Go figure.

The sketchcrawl was to be in a park near my house so the walk was short. Yvan had arranged for us to be able to take shelter in Maison Dorion-Coulombe to eat lunch. This house is the office of the Societé de la riviere St. Charles, the group that manages the very long (I think it’s 32 km long) Parc lineare. I headed there, and found Yvan, huddled at one end of the long porch that fronts this beautiful house. We lamented our bad luck (the next day was supposed to be warm and sunny) and I sat down to draw some pumpkins that were sitting on the porch.

Stillman & Birn Beta (6×9), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

Yvan got up and said he was going inside to chat with them about our “event” and returned very excited. He was almost at a loss for words as he’d discovered that inside was a cornucopia of things to draw. Inside there were plants and a host of stuffed birds and mammals. And in a large aquarium was a large turtle named Donnatello. He and I talked for quite a while.

Things just got better and better. Cassandra, the woman who runs the place had no problem with us moving the taxidermy and situating it on one of the tables so we could draw it. The cushy chairs were quite a step up from my tripod stool, too. I found that they sell tea, coffee and soft drinks and I ordered a coffee. It was some of the best coffee I’ve ever had. Now this was sketching at its finest.

Still, a sketchcrawl of two is a bit of a hollow adventure so it was pretty special when our friends Pierre and Celine came in, followed shortly afterward by Guylaine. The sketchcrawl, without the crawling, was on. We spent the next few hours sketching, talking and even spent some time sitting around a table eating lunch. The time passed too quickly. Here’s a sketch I did of a Northern Saw-whet owl.

Stillman & Birn Beta (6x9), Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

Stillman & Birn Beta (6×9), Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black